A Year of Giving and Future Growth

As we reflect on 2024, we are immensely grateful for our incredible volunteers and the unwavering generosity in Northeast Ohio, the place we’re proud to call home. None of this would have been possible without the invaluable support of our community partnerships. Let’s celebrate the milestones of this past year and look ahead to a bright future, continuing to positively impact one child at a time.

Birdie Bags & Community Building

Heading into our 12th year, we would like to celebrate everyone who has helped us achieve our goals thus far. 

 In 2024 we were able to pack 51,880 Birdie Bags! Our Birdie Bags program helps ensure that food-insecure children in the community can access reliable meals while they’re not in school. We are excited as we’ve expanded into Field Local School District in addition to Hudson City School District—our first district-funded program. 

We would not be able to do all we do without the help of our volunteers. This year we had 239 volunteers that helped in 2024. Packing endless Birdie Bags, helping us at events, and so much more—we are so thankful for the hours they contributed (2,549 hours to be exact!).

We provide our Birdie Bags throughout 14 school districts (Kent, Alliance, Southeast, Streetsboro, Barberton, Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Rootstown, Ravenna, Windham, Woodridge, Waterloo, Field, and Hudson) and three counties—Stark, Summit, and Portage.

A Very Merry Dinner (AVMD)

Our most recent milestone was our Christmas event, A Very Merry Dinner; we were able to add 115 new children and a new school district (Field) to the program. AVMD is a way for us to help provide a complete holiday meal and gifts for children from their wish lists. This year we made the holidays special with eight of our local school districts, including Kent, Ravenna, Windham, Southeast, Alliance, Cuyahoga Falls, Streetsboro, and Brimfield. Providing a total of 226 families and 646 children with a special holiday season.

A large portion of our support comes from members of our community hosting a Giving Tree or Toy Drive, offering assistance with wrapping presents, or donating essential items during the holiday season—such as wrapping paper, storage units, and refrigerated trucks for food. Our Giving Tree partners are a key element of our program, which distributes children’s personalized wish lists to the community. We are thankful for the supporters who visit each business and fulfill a wish list. We couldn’t do it without you.

The annual Toy Drive was also a great way for businesses to donate and give back to the community during the holidays. We were able to give back to even more families because of the generosity of businesses and individuals in the community hosting these events. This year we estimated that we distributed almost 650 items that were donated through a toy drive. 

We were truly overwhelmed by the incredible support from our community. We had so many supporters who showed up to wrap gifts. Your kindness and generosity helped bring smiles and happiness to so many, and we want to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed to making these events a success.

Expansion

We are always looking to expand and develop partnerships within the community. We hope to continue expanding internally and broadening our reach to help even more children and school districts. As the need grows, our goal is to be there to fulfill it.

We are looking forward to 2025 and are excited to expand. We would like to give a big warm welcome to some of the newest members of our team: Kristen Tate, Evan Peterson, and Kaelin Azbell. We are thrilled to have them join the Ben Curtis Family Foundation team and look forward to the passion and energy they will bring as we continue working together to make a positive impact in our community.

Become a Champion

Do you want to get involved in the fight against the childhood hunger in Northeast Ohio?

Get in touch with our team. We are always in need of volunteers, donors, sponsors and community partners to help us fulfill our mission of alleviating child hunger in our community.